Gary Marshall

I wouldn't feel hard done to on the michelin score if i were 'manchester' probably quicker to list the regional city that does have a town centre starred restaurant rather than those who don't? (can't be bothered to actually do this but am pretty sure) the box tree is a good half hour on the train out of leeds and birkenhead is hardly the town centre either pool court in leeds was the last one in leeds centre and that was only a 5-6 table annexe to the brasserie, and so far off the radar even i've only set foot in it once. The economics of running a michelin starred place in most provinicial centres doesn't add up given the cost of sites, vagaries of evening trade etc, if anthonys gets a star it would be the exception but if you've been you know it's not a prime site and they did well to get it at a good price.

well compared to the rumours when the schwabs first put it up for sale that anthony worrall thompson had bought it, it can't be that bad. Can it? Pm me, discretion assured

not heard anything, when i saw your post i thought you had news!

yes, my saute pan handle came off and now has an industrial weld on it courtesy of the local metal basher. Although they have a 'lifetime' guarantee the distributor has changed so frequently that the current distributor will not honour the warranty prior to 2006 they have offered 15% off new pans as a gesture but not addressed the induction issue. My man at peter maturi reckons that the issue with the pans is that although the advetising blurb suggests it is a layer of copper between the stainless steel it is in reality just 'flecked' through the metal and thats why the magnetism varies.

the problem at the 'lower' end is if they've bought product in they don't know what's in it. The problem with 'proper' food prep is you can't guarantee complete separation of preparation, If you make bread on site for example there will likely be traces of flour everywhere, whizz up some nuts, same problem. You could say roughly what's in it but can't guarantee it hasn't got 'contaminated' somewhere down the line. It is unworkable. It must be hard suffering with the allergies but to put the burden of proof onto the restaurants is not fair, there's enough bureaucracy as it is with current health and safety measures to strangle a small enterprise.

i heard the 'no nuts will be served on the plane' speech for the first time last week, and it did more irk me than command sympathy, fair enough if you've forgotten your epi-pen but surely it is the punters responsibility to take care of themselves? you've got to wonder where it will all end....

having just fitted an induction hob i am having an unusual problem with my not insubstantial collection of le pentole, essentially some work and some don't! out of interest has anyone else had issues with induction hobs? For the record their advertising blurb says they do work with induction.

agreed, well that's what i told mrs m.

You wouldn't go out of your way to eat at thestaratharome? You're mad sir/madam. For a start, you'd never get there if you didn't go out of your way. ← only seen pictures of the food at the sportsman and all i can say is i'm very much looking forward to my visit soon.

Devonshire arms 0* Sketch 0* Danesfield house 1* Clivedon 0* Wintringham fields 0* Waterside 1* (This in my opinion is what it should be) from the michelin post, you seem to like it, what did you think? edited to add, i've never heard of it!

well the modern must be good 'cause thom is tempting bapi and i over there for lunch sometime and he knows how quickly my toys will be out of the pram if it 'aint right. Hopefully it will actually be serving food unlike the venue of the first lunch we left thom in charge of arranging personally i think a trip to the www.buyartfair.co.uk show and lunch at the modern would be a most splendid day out

as an ex-trade member i can only report on what we found, which was essentially that the majority of punters are price, not quality conscious, whether it be chicken steak or whatever. I think that attitudes towards buying better quality foods are changing in peoples shopping habits witness the crowds of people i see in the local farm shops every week happily spending £8- £11 on a loose birds free range chicken, but still even they would baulk at spending £16 on the same dish in a restaurant as we discovered, we bought all our eggs free range too but i suspect we were in the minority. It'll be a few years yet when restaurants in the UK can charge 32E for a wood roasted poulet de bresse chicken breast and gratin dauphinpoise like i had in france on thursday! (to be fair it was up a mountain, owned by the rothschilds and we were the poorest people in there by a long way!)

oddly enough i was thinking of your poor report when i read the article, it was tipped for two there i don't think the results will make any difference to where i actually go this year, going to the sportsman at seasalter, thinking about nathan outlaws already, anthony's & champion sauvage are always on the list and even if they gave 3* to ducasse i'd still want to hear of a superb meal from another trusted source to back it up

just reading an article in the caterer with chefs predictions for stars in the 08 guide, some sensible calls, anthony's for one, champignon sauvage for three etc. One that did stand out was a call for one for tom's kitchen. Never been but can't say i've seen one positive piece anywhere on this place, most recently a particularly ripe savaging from dos hermanos. They quote the star at harome's andrew pern who says the beauty of michelin lies in it's unpredictability which is spot on. It seems there are so many places trying so hard to get a star it results in some pretty formularic menus that could be eaten anywhere, from the top of my head last year places like hipping hall or no 6 in padstow that may well get rewarded, but hopefully the more individual places will get a look in too. i wonder what they'll make of the current crop of more casual london places like magdalen, GQS etc

i think it was bocuse who first said this but it has been accredited to many others since. Ramsay's take on it is 'do you think giorgio armani personally made your suit'

interesting, classical and tom aikens are not often found in the same sentence!

i was told last night that the new chef has left, hopefully it's a silly season tale, being dropped in 'it' at christmas is not pleasant.

indeed i also asked for chefs new menus by email too and got no response. They do answer the phone though but were again very guarded about questions to do with menus or chef. I agree with your sentiments though. btw anyone know if there is any B&B available in walking distance other than at WF, the pub across the road used to but i'm not sure if it is still there?

interesting, i actually had a table booked last week for lunch but cancelled it thinking it might be a bit too much after harry's place the night before. I didn't fancy the xmas lunch menu and alc is usually a re-mortgage job so thought best not to put myself into way of temptation. new dining room i hadn't heard of, though the original room was nice it would only hold low teens max, think there was about 6 tables plus the private dining room too. my favourite room in there is the 'bar' lounge time just slips by in there, aided and abetted by large brandies usually!

apart from in le gavroche where it's complimentary, as i later found out after insisting on tap.

the pricing is in line with the whole idiosyncratic nature of the place and no doubt the economics, when you only have 3 tables you aren't going to be in business long with 10.99 main courses. The key is if upon spending your cash you feel you had value for money, and i did, i thought we were heading for £300 + so was pleasantly suprised (ahh, the lala land us foodies reside in )

I forgot to write up that arbutus saved a potentially disasterous saturday in london for me recently. For reasons unknown i had agreed with mrs m to accompany her to london to go and see her best friends new house in essex, there was at least the propsect of a few other other husbands there to hang out with. On arriving at kings cross it became apparent that i would be the only male there and the prospect of trekking out to essex and back to sit in a house with mrs m's old school friends, lovely though they are, didn't vastly appeal. Sensing my cunningly concealed displeasure (only slight use of the f word, ruined, weekend, wasted etc)it was quickly decided that perhaps it might be best if i went for lunch and we re-grouped later, with that she was off and i was on the dog to mr friar to see what the score was. Unfortunatley he was half full of ham sandwich and not up for selection but agreed that my inital thought of Arbutus or wild honey would be a good call, and furnished with the number i booked a table. I had bumped into Tony Demetre at hibiscus a few weeks earlier and since i hadn't sampled his cooking since putney bridge days a trip was long overdue, that and matt grant rhapsodising about their excellent pomme puree on a recent thread, well it was a pomme puree sort of day. A very warm welcome at arbutus awaited and i had a table in the bar, with the instructions to 'find some wine and chill out' seemed like a plan. Tony was in and dining en famille but had a quick chat with him and returned to my table to be furnished with the arbutus cocktail which got things rolling and a decent new world pinot that started the move to the edge. Given the Dos Hermanos are usually up for short notice drop of vino i tried to get hold of them eventually tracking down HP wolfing down oysters at bentleys so he headed over too. In the meantime i was getting busy with my starter, a braised hare shoulder on creamed polenta. Possibly the best rabbitty/polenta combo since an etheral version at locatelli some years ago dark braised shoulder with silky pomme like polenta, as i said it was pomme sort of day. Next up was comped plate of smoked salmon which was very good with, from fading memory , a shalloty dressing. Main course arrived in a procession of cool black staub pots, always a good sign in my book, in one, yes the pomme, and it didn't disappoint, in the other two large balls. Pork Caillettes to be precise bound in caul containing what i know not, perhaps luckily, until i finished when tony said it was 'very traditional just the usual lungs and other offal'. There were also some good carrots and braising liquor in the pots too. A great winter dish. By this point HP had arrived so time for un autre bouteille and most excellently a partner for the tarte tatin for two i had my eyes on. The tarte came in a copper frying pan and whilst not the very best i've had it certainly did the trick and also got me back into making it at home too. Coffee and a calva to finish a very enjoyable visit, well worth it, good to see it buzzing at lunchtime and got knows how they were going to get through the 160 -odd descending on them on saturday night, but tony and will seem to have hit on a winning formula.

the usual triumph of hope over experience

it rang a bell that mains were expensive but still a bit of a shock to see £35 but overall it seemed worth it. when you only do 10 covers it's not going to be cheap so i don't begrudge it, there were some quality ingredients being utilised and there was plenty of it for the full plate afficionados.

Tuesday night saw us head down south-ish to grantham for dinner at harry's place in nearby Great Gonerby. Despite having a star it is quite low profile and it has the distinction of being the smallest one star restaurant in the country,indeed it's probably one of the smallest restuarants in the UK having only 3 tables in the Hallam's front room seating 10 maximum. Jan moir wrote a review of it years ago and it has always struck me as somewhere i'd like to try one day. After a couple of years in a standard restaurant setting and previously working in the family owned restaurants harry & caroline hallam bought the house that became harry's place 19 years ago. Despite the foodie paraphenalia around the dining area such as oodles of AA rosette plates they are intermingled with family portraits so it really does feel like you're in their dining room. At first i wasn't convinced this was a good look, especially as we were first to arrive, warmly greeted with an open door by caroline, but we eventually realised this is a very personal place. The menu is concise to a point, there's only 2 choices per course plus cheese, though some of the sauce descriptions did mention about 5 ingredients. The hand written menus & wine list show that the hallams are perfectly comfortable turning out the food that they, and judging by the popularity of the place, their customers love, there was no nod to any modern techniques though nor was the menu trying to be modishly -retro. we started with a glass of champagne which was a very nice bollinger at a very un-ducasse price of £8 and some very pleasant though unnanounced hot canapes with feta/olives tomato combo on them, plus decent wholemeal bread. The starters didn't particularly entice on first glance, a fresh tomato soup with pesto, though billed on the menu as soupe de tomates friaches avec pistou it read a little better and a scallop terrine with sauternes jelly. probably best to mention the prices at this point £9.50 for the soup and £19.50 for the scallops. But more of that later. Not being a massive fan of terrines generally, i went out of foodie mode and into, 'well it's a cold night and i actually quite fancy some soup to start with'. What arrived was a shallow-ish bowl with a very intense, dark tomato soup with a very pungent pistou/pesto on top, very fragrant. the soup had real depth, i'm sure it must have a good meaty stock as a base but there was also a very subtle and accurate spicey-ness to it too. we were both very happy with our choices. For main there was a choice of a loin of lamb with a red wine and cast of thousands sauce and for sarah a halibut with lentil & red wine-y sauce. Without the menu i can't do the descriptions justice i'm afriad. I had the lamb and it really was superb, it was a black face cross from the menu that i remember, but what stood out was the cooking, charred on the outside to blue in the middle, textbook black n' blue, 'sous vide my arse' i thought as i tucked in. The sauce too didn't disappoint, like the soup, seemingly built out of many layers of reduction. Sarah's halibut was similarly well cooked and again subtly spiced with what the french would call 'curry' (and the late tony finch would always go mad about !) and the sauce also excellent. Oddly both dishes came with exactly the same garnish of a very arty pile of veg including french beans, sweet corn & fried breadcrumbs. sounds odd but tasted great. A bowl of duck/goose fat cooked, no, not the now ubiquitous triple cooked chips but rosemary/thyme roasties also accompanied the dishes. Oh, and they were £35 each. The main courses, not the roasties. The desserts were equally as idiosyncratic a cherry jelly or apricot ice cream and amaretto sauce. We decided on a cheese and a dessert to share in turn. The menu listed a lot of cheeses maybe 12, mainly french. I was expecting to make a selection from the list but no, we got a bit of everything, in menu order for, given the cost of cheese a very respectable £10. Naturally i found room for some dessert and went for the ice cream which was pretty good if unadventurous at £7. the wine list continued the personal theme with a probably 10 choice list from mid - £20's upwards and in the case of the reds quite considerably upwards and some unusal choices for such a short list, 2 riojas for example and some serious bordeaux. We stuck to the lower reaches with a riesling and an 04 bourgogne from a gevrey chambertin producer both about £30 and both actually very decent. we also had glass of dessert wine each and comped a glass of their 1er cru dessert wine that i thought better of ordering without a price list in front of me! with coffee and calva to finish the bill came to £200 before service which despite the seemingly steep menu prices we thought was actually good going. Harry & caroline are very chatty and hospitable and it is such a refreshing change to eat a chefs menu that is literally what he likes/wants to cook without being overtly influenced by fashion or head office. I told him the lamb was brilliant and how nice it was to see some good 'old fashioned' pan action and he said yes, just seared in a bloody hot, old, cast iron pan and then rested. I can still taste it, it was superb, going from kebaby charcoal to finest rare breed haute cusine in one slice. Despite the small number of covers they still open most of the year, lunch and dinner, taking only a christmas break and given harry is about to celebrate a milestone birthday, it's very good going, and you get the impression there's not many of harry hallam's ilk left still cooking which is a shame. If you like classic cooking with top notch execution it's well worth a trip.